Thursday, February 17, 2011

Blueprint for establishing a fair society in South Korea

The Blue House revealed yesterday President Lee Myung-bak’s blueprint to make Korea a fair society, announcing a series of projects to be implemented throughout 2011 that will help the country realize the goal.

Lee hosted the first monthly meeting for the fair society campaign at the Blue House yesterday and the prime minister presented the blueprint.

Five themes in the blueprint were selected to be represented, including eradicating corruption in Korea by operating laws and systems fairly, guaranteeing fair opportunity, protecting rights without privileges, creating a healthy market economy and caring for minorities.

Since Lee presented his “fair society” vision during his Liberation Day address last year, the president has said he will come up with projects that will bring about tangible outcomes to realize the vision.

In addition to the prime minister, ministers from the defense, finance, labor, education, public administration and knowledge economy ministries also presented their ideas at the meeting.

Civilian experts and civic group heads joined the discussion as well, and key projects were selected among the five themes.

They include fair military service duty, fair taxation, protection of workers’ rights and interests and fair personnel appointments in the government.

Other ideas include using education as an opportunity to ease the wealth gap, ending discrimination linked to educational background and facilitating the harmonious growth of conglomerates and smaller companies.

The Lee administration will also work to root out the country’s decades-long practice of allowing former colleagues to give retired judges and prosecutors special treatment when they become lawyers in private practices.

According to the government, the prime minister’s office will be in charge of continuing to check up on the progress being made in the key tasks.

Lee will host a meeting every month from now on to follow up on the progress.
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